Sam's fingers curl tighter around the keys. Kevin hasn't noticed, transfixed as he is on the camera feeds and schematics and voices in his ear, as Sam slips the fob from his belt and subtly hides it in his palm. He's leaning in close enough to hear the output from Kevin's headset, keeping one eye on the screens. It's hard to tell the soldiers apart in their tactical gear, while Dean stands out in his WY engineer's overalls, flamethrower raised as he rounds a corner.
Bradbury and Moore are covering another exit to the module. Opposite, adjacent, Sam has no idea based on the position of the cameras, but his heart leaps into his throat as he sees the creature dart across the same screen his brother's just vacated. It's in the ambulance module with him. Sam's fists ball tighter, the keys digging into his palm.
Please let this work. Let Dean be okay. Please.
Over Kevin's earpiece, he faintly hears the words, " Jettison it."
Sam's mouth goes dry. He can see Dean still in the room, scrambling for the door while a jet of steam keeps the xenomorph distracted. He's out of fuel. "What's happening?"
Kevin knows. Sam can tell by the look on his face. "They're ejecting the ambulance."
Panic floods through him. "They can't! Dean's still in there."
"I know." Kevin swallows. "The creature's trapped. They have to do it now."
"No!" Sam shouts, his deal with Crowley all but forgotten. He doesn't care. Not if he loses Dean. "You can override it from here."
Kevin bites his lip, apologetic, but resolved. "Ejection chambers pressurised," he says into his mic. Sam hears shouts over the earpiece.
" Henriksen, you bastard!" It's Dean.
"No!" Sam darts forward, grabs hold of Kevin's headset and wrenches it half-off, yelling into the mic. "Dean! Dean, I'm coming for you!"
How he'll do that, he has no idea, but he's not standing by watching this.
From somewhere close behind him, he hears the sound of a gun cocking. Sam turns, sees Ketch's face staring down at him from the other end of the barrel of a rifle.
"Sam, step away." His voice is soft. Dangerous. Sam licks his lips.
"Ketch!" Somewhere nearby, both Cas and Anna are shouting protests. Sam doesn't care. Not if they won't help Dean.
"Let the Marshal do his job," Ketch says, and Sam feels a sudden, burning hatred flood through him. He glances down at the rifle.
It's not a deterrent enough. Sam lifts his good arm, swipes the barrel away with a snarl while simultaneously launching a kick at Ketch's shins.
Clearly, Ketch hadn't expected him to actually have the nerve. His slack aim goes off and he lets out a cry as his right knee buckles, hissing in pain, then Sam rakes the keys over his face for good measure as he drops to the floor.
Now Cas and Anna's protests have taken on a different nature, but Sam pays them no heed. He has to be fast. The keys get abandoned on the floor, useless, as he vaults the desk, snatching up the flight recorder and bolting for the door.
At least one of them will go after him. He knows they will, but there's one place they can't follow. Behind him, he hears Cas' voice crying out "Sam!" and footsteps racing to catch up, but he's already come up on the auxiliary vent opening at the end of the corridor. He hits the release and scrambles up to clamber inside. Even he barely fits, but it's enough to get him away as his only thought is making it to Dean.
Back at the Marshal's station, Ketch hisses in pain and straightens up, wiping blood from his cheek. He glances over at the door as if hoping Sam and Cas might magically reappear, then at Anna, and finally at Kevin, who's looking both panicked and stunned. "Uh, sir…" He's trying to relay over the intercom. The ambulance module is long gone. "Castiel and Sam have run for it. Sam has the flight recorder."
" Leave them ," comes the faint reply. " We got the xenomorph. It doesn't matter ."
Kevin gives a helpless glance at Ketch, throwing up his hands. "The xenomorph's gone."
That should be good news. Ketch turns back to Anna, who's trying to prop herself up on her good side, wincing through the glare she shoots in his direction. "Aren't you going to get after them?"
"Not in my orders."
"Anything happens to them, the company will come down on you hard."
"I don't work for Weyland-Yutani."
In pain though she is, Anna shoots him a fierce glare. "Maybe not, but you don't want to face Weyland-Yutani's lawyers, and I should know. I'm one of them."
Ketch grits his teeth. The conflict plays out of his face, torn between the best course of action, then with a huff he turns and runs after them.
The whole world is spinning. Gravity's gone, both the xenomorph and Dean plus a ton of medical equipment sent hurtling through the air from the force of ejection as the ambulance module is blasted into space. He can still hear it shrieking, as desperate as he is to find some semblance of upright as the module spirals into chaos. No way had they followed the proper ejection procedure. The only way the module should be spinning like this is if they never let the ejection arm get to full reach, but maybe, Dean thinks that's the reason he's still alive.
He has to get out.
The intercom has turned to static. Maybe he's out of range, or maybe Henriksen has deliberately cut him off, but it doesn't matter. As his surroundings cycle round and round in his vision, he sees it: the light by the door has turned from red to amber. The lock's off.
It's the lifeline that he needs. Among all the equipment hurtling around the ambulance, Dean's eyes search desperately for something that could help him, and land fortuitously on a paramedic's EVA suit tethered to the wall. When the next turn of the cylindrical module sends him slamming against the side again, he does his best to grasp onto something solid, finding a tethering strap fixed securely in place and holding firmly on.
Fuck knows how he's going to do this while continuously spinning in zero gravity and avoiding one pissed off xenomorph, but all he can do is try.
His shoulders scream in protest as Dean drags himself towards it, unclipping the straps and forcing his limbs into the suit. That proves to be the easy part. When it comes to trying to pull on the helmet, he find himself crossing paths with the xenomorph again.
Random turbulence sends it hurtling in his direction, its claws reach for him, and Dean does his best to kick off from the side and twist out of the way. It partly works, its reach falling short by inches, but then it hits the ceiling and its claws find purchase in the mesh surface. It steadies itself as it grips on, then Dean sees its head turn in his direction. It's coming for him.
" Shit."
The flamethrower is still hurtling around alongside all the other untethered equipment, and Dean has to make three ill-timed grabs for it before he finally grasps on. Each turn of the module sends him closer to where the xenomorph has itself anchored to the floor, and he tries to grab for the straps on the walls again to drag himself closer to the exits. It's harder in the padded glove of the EVA suit, but he manages it.
Through the porthole, he can see the shape of Sevastopol intermittently appearing and vanishing as the module turns. It isn't receding as quickly as it should, the yaw of the station's motion having reduced the ejection velocity. That helps Dean, but he has to time things right.
Gradually, the xenomorph is dragging itself closer to him, undeterred by the small pieces of equipment that keep colliding with it. He's only going to get one shot.
God, he hopes there's enough fuel left in the flamethrower to pull this off.
The xenomorph is yards away. Sevastopol appears in the porthole, Dean counts two seconds, then hits the door release.
Depressurisation is immediate. He feels himself being sucked out, a sharp tug at his waist as it pulls on his center of mass, then he's flying backwards towards the station. He timed it right, he realises with a sense of relief, heading mostly in the direction of Sevastopol even if he's going to hit it it somewhere lower down than he'd left.
Of course, the xenomorph is getting sucked out too. The oxygen concentration rushing from the doorway proves to be just enough. Dean grasps the flamethrower's trigger and squeezes.
The last of the fuel ignites, the pressure difference of the vacuum making it spray out and engulf the creature just as it exits the module's bottleneck. Maybe it shrieks again, but Dean can't hear it anymore.
There can't be much thrust in the blast, but it's enough to knock the creature off course, and with a sense of relief Dean sees it flail its limbs as it joins the ambulance hurtling off into space. The bright glow of the burning fuel is shortlived, but it's not like it's going to survive long in the vacuum of space anyway.
"Yeah, take that you fucker," Dean hisses, and a sudden, intense elation swells in his chest.
Don't celebrate too soon, he reminds himself, you still need to get back on board.
He swings the empty gas tank to give himself enough momentum to turn not a moment too soon. The giant metal structure hurtles up behind him, the fuel line catches on an extended rig, and as it tears from Dean's grasp, it slows him down just enough to lessen the impact as he finally hits the station's out wall. He doesn't grab on firmly enough at first, bounces, and then finally finds himself able to make purchase on one of the structural support poles running between the station's three towers.
His muscles take the strain, then everything falls still. Literally every inch of him is sore, screaming from either bruises or twists or sprains, but he's alive, and he'll take that.
Looking up, Dean sees there's an airlock hatch literally ten meters above him, and lets out a giddy laugh. He has no idea if that's the first lucky break he's caught today or just one in a long line of many, but either way, he's picturing the look of joy and utter disbelief on Sam's face when he sees him again.
Dean fixes his gaze determinedly on the hatch entrance and begins to pull himself towards it.
"Sam!" Ketch calls out into the abandoned hallways of the station. "Sam! I'm sorry about your brother, but there's no point you going and getting yourself hurt too now, is there?"
He doesn't get a response. Honestly, he has no idea where the boy has gone, and he can't even find Castiel, but he figures it must be this way somewhere. If the kid has reached the transit line, Tran would know about it, and from the radio silence, Ketch figures that hasn't happened.
He heaves a sigh of frustration. "Sam, just come back with me to the Marshal's station and we can smooth this all out. There's going to be trouble with Weyland-Yutani if you don't." Mostly trouble for him, but Ketch doesn't say that.
"You are distressed." The robotic, emotionless voice comes from off to his left as Ketch bypasses a junction, and he rolls his eyes. He turns to see the mannequin-esque shape of a Working Joe approaching him, its eyes red.
"Not this again. Don't tell me you've had the same malfunction as the others. I really don't have the bullets to waste on you."
"Allow me to help," it says without acknowledging his words, and reaches a hand out for him.
Ketch knows where this is going. Best to put a stop to it now. He raises his rifle and sprays a burst of rounds towards the android.
A bloom of white synthetic fluid erupts from its neck as he goes for the headshot, knocking its plastic skull off its shoulders, but that doesn't stop it advancing. "Violence is unacceptable," he hears from its voicebox, the sound quality having turned like an old radio with too much interference.
"Really?" Ketch shoots another couple of rounds towards it, then, seeing that the android's undeterred, turns his rifle to swing the butt towards its torso. It stumbles back, Ketch feels a moment's satisfaction, and then without warning, sparks erupt in his vision as something hits his head hard from behind.
He goes down, losing his grip on the rifle as he gasps and falls to his knees. He shakes his head vigorously, tries to clear it as he looks up again to see another of the Working Joes, identical to the first, looking down at him with glowing red eyes. "There is really no need for this," it says calmly.
"Bloody stop it, then," he retorts, and goes for the pistol at his belt.
He puts a shot through its eye, apparently manages to hit its CPU as it crumples, only to reveal another synthetic directly behind it. No, wait...two.
"What the…?" Now this is really getting odd. Nervous now, Ketch raises his hand to fire another shot, and suddenly finds his arm being grabbed and twisted by yet another Working Joe emerging from the corridor at his back.
It wrenches at his arm and he screams as he hears his elbow snap, the weapon falling from his hands. Another blow lands to the side of his head and he falls to the floor, tasting blood. Shit, no, this shouldn't be happening. "Tran! Get me backup!" he tries to yell into his earpiece. "The synthetics have bloody lost it!" Then he realises the blow has snapped his mic clean off.
"Shit," Ketch murmurs, lifting his head and blinking to see there's a whole horde of them, each of them staring calmly down at him like demented, red eyed clones. He's afraid.
"Allow me to help," one of them repeats, and he desperately scrambles for the gun with his good hand as they begin to close in. He doesn't make it.
The blows start to come, too many for him to even distinguish one from the next as their plastic hands pummel into him. There's no-one left on the abandoned station to hear his screams, or maybe just no-one who cares.
He's unconscious before his body hits the floor.
Dean can see the bruises beginning to blossom on his forearms once he has the spacesuit off and rolled up the sleeves of his overalls. It almost takes him by surprise. He barely remembers being hit by the falling equipment while spinning around inside the ambulance, adrenaline dulling whatever pain he should have felt. Still, he's sure there'll be worse when he gets chance to have a proper look at himself later. Right now, he has other priorities.
"Henriksen!" he spits into the earpiece as he begins to make his way back through the station, trying to figure out where he is. "Henriksen, you son of a bitch. I'm still alive." He waits, almost hoping for a response just so he can unleash his anger and yell some more, but there's nothing. "Goddammit!"
He lashes out with a kick, hits the wall, then hisses in pain. He can't afford to lose it now. He has to get back to Sam, let his brother know he's alright.
Damn, this place needs maps.
He keeps going, having a vague idea that he needs to make it up several levels and inwards in order to get back to the Marshal's station. He's still trembling, struggling to shake of the shock of what just happened and the pain in his limbs increasing as the adrenaline rush gradually wears off. At least he's breathing easier now, knowing the worst he has to worry about is looters and rogue synthetics, but as far as he can tell, this sector of the station is completely abandoned.
The way back to the transit line is signposted as he comes up on a major corridor, and Dean follows it down towards " Station Zeta (Lines A + D) ". It's eerie, how completely abandoned the station seems, the emergency lights glowing dimly and life support systems giving a soft hum in the background. He feels a pang as he remembers how similar it had felt when he'd first arrived. At least then John had been with him.
The path takes him down a gently curving corridor, the walls lined with stacks of crates which he assumes were at one point awaiting transportation as they populate the route down to the transit car. Now he doesn't suppose there's anyone left on the station who needs their contents, whatever they may be. Goods for sale, spare parts, luxury tech… Anything essential seems to have been claimed by the looters already.
That's the thought crossing his mind when he hears it. It's not a soft noise, rather a loud crash, like someone knocking something from a great height, and Dean freezes. Maybe this sector isn't so empty after all.
It must be looters, he figures, come to raid the crates and he goes still as he listens carefully for any clue what they want. Not all of them can be like Trenton. It might be safe for him to continue, or he can look for a vent cover again…
A beat passes in silence, Dean strains to make out any voices, then the next sound he hears makes his blood run cold. A soft hiss like a viper, followed by the scrabbling of claws, and an all too familiar black shape emerges from round the curve of the hallway.
At first, Dean thinks he must be stuck in some horrible nightmare. Then, " Shit."
Dean darts for cover behind a stack of crates, trying to breathe quietly though his chest has suddenly become tight. He presses the button on his headset again. "Henriksen!" No response. "Henriksen! Tran! Either of you come in. I'm not fucking around. It's still here." He dares glance out from his hiding place for just a moment, peering round the corner in time to see a black, barbed tail disappearing round the bend in the corridor. "Repeat, the alien is still here." Still nothing. " Fuck !"
He practically wants to throw the headset in frustration as he wonders what to do next. He couldn't give less of a shit about Henriksen, but he needs to get back to the Marshal's station before the creature does. Before it gets to Sam.
This doesn't make any sense, Dean thinks as he crawls out of his hiding space, eyes going to the vent covers in the walls for a safe place to climb through. That thing had been on the ambulance module with him. He knows it had, and it definitely hadn't followed him through the airlock. So how the fuck is it still here?
Dean swallows. Now he needs to get back to Sam. And soon. They have to find a way off this station, and it's down to him to keep his little brother safe.
Cautiously, Dean climbs up into a nearby auxiliary vent and begins the crawl towards the transit line.